


Elevation

by PlumTea



Category: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: Classical Music, Gen, M/M, Piano
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 22:28:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18678604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlumTea/pseuds/PlumTea
Summary: Innes has one way to defeat Ephraim, once and for all.





	Elevation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sumaru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sumaru/gifts).



> Happy deadbirdmas! Piano time

Ephraim has no taste for strategy, even if plots on war maps are worthless outside of war. The lack of logic seeps into his everyday life, and it’s absolutely absurd how people find his brutish personality endearing. Such nonsense, poor taste. Innes can’t stand it, it’s absolutely infuriating how anyone could possibly see such a pathetic display as charming. How he hates Ephraim, with his clueless grin and and how his mint-colored hair catches the glint of sunlight off the tip of his spear and how he walks into every room with a kind of pride and gravity that makes everyone turn their heads and Innes loathes him. 

There is no competing on the training grounds, for a bow can’t contest with a spear, but there is one things he can do that Ephraim will have no choice but to bow to him for.

He hears a clatter of shoes on the tile before the doors burst open. “You’re being too loud again!” Tana shouts, and he doesn’t have to turn to know her eyes are bristling. 

"It’s necessary!” he yells back, and returns to his practice. There is no success without hard work, and there’s certainly no perfection without it. This has to be carefully sculpted, dignified, refined, everything that Ephraim isn’t or will ever be. 

He’ll show him. He will.

His hands come down, and all that rings in his ears are echoes.

 

* * *

 

Frelia’s annual balls have resumed now that peace and prosperity are both here once again, after the last of the burnt have been rebuilt and all the black mud has been washed away. The halls are decorated, and it’s been so long since he’s seen the servants smile openly, not something hidden behind politeness. 

He spots Ephraim by the buffet, having forsaken conversation to pile his plate high with oysters and crab legs. He is looking merry and delightfully oblivious, and Innes feels the fires rage in him as he cuts through the crowd to grab Ephraim by the arm.

“You. Come with me.”

Ephraim hastily swallows down a crab cake but lets himself be naively dragged to his doom.

“A piano?” Ephraim remarks as Innes shows him to the grand ballroom, currently closed off for the party. An ebony piano sits in the center of the room, freshly dusted from this morning, its gleaming surface rivaling the sparkling chandelier overhead. 

‘Watch,” Innes says, breath in his throat as he sits on the bench, “and learn.” Clumsy fingers that grasp spears could never be tidy enough to touch piano keys. 

All a piano is comes down to wood, brass, and strings, but there is no other Innes. He breathes out and pushes down and makes the song know it, that this is Innes’ tale alone. The sound goes through his body, and he takes it all, eyes closed, eyes open, not seeing but only hearing as his fingers thrum across the keys faster and faster still. He’s shaking his head now, pushing out every note with fury. He sings a vision and the piano responds back, marching on in a battle they can’t lose. 

Lightly, refined for strategy, as he bends close trying to hear the sound to something powerful for force of will. He surges, crashing the waves upon Ephraim, because if nothing will knock him down then this would; sharper than any arrow-tip, tighter than the raging heart in the thrall of battle. His eyes fly open as the sound peaks, tightening his spine as he feels like laughing, for only he could render this melody worthy to topple a rival. 

Once the last note vibrates into the air, Innes turns to see the stunned expression on Ephraim’s face and yes, victory! Do you see now, Ephraim? How there is a world between them that never can or will be broached, and how he sits on the clouds while Ephraim can only imagine the dirt? Bask in his superiority, and know how no charm could ever overcome this massive gap.

“Have you nothing to say?” he asks, pushing the issue.

As if he remembers that he’s there, in his fine regalia and cloak and not in the stars, Ephraim blinks, righting himself. “That was… wow. That was really good.”

Innes crosses his arms and feels a smug grin biting his cheeks.

“Did you come up with that by yourself?”

“I did.”

“For Tana?”

Innes scoffs, meeting Ephraim triumphantly. “Of course not. For you. To topple you down.”

“For me?” Ephraim laughs. He slaps Innes across the back, hard, enough that it sends his torso lurching forward. “I see. That’s pretty nice of you.”

It’s not nice of him, it’s a pitch of superiority! But Ephraim is there smiling, like he knows some grand secret that Innes isn’t aware of. 

“I liked it. Looking forward to your next piece!”

“There is no next time! There is only this once!” He shouts to Ephraim’s back, because the prince is walking away, laughing, and Innes isn’t sure whether he’s won or lost. 


End file.
